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MONTPELIER — Gov. Peter Shumlin proposed a $657 million transportation budget Thursday that banks on lawmakers and his administration coming to an agreement on how to raise $36.5 million in new revenues.

Failure to boost revenues to close the gap in the governor’s spending plan would force officials to pare $123 million from the transportation program, because the administration uses state dollars to draw down federal funding for many projects.

“Clearly it would be very painful,” Secretary of Transportation Brian Searles told members of the House Transportation Committee during a briefing after the governor’s budget address. It would set back efforts to catch up on road and bridge maintenance, he said, “and it would not be good for the economy.”

Shumlin told the House and Senate that his administration would work with lawmakers to figure out how to raise additional revenue, but offered no hints in his speech as to his preferred option.

Searles, however, presented the House Transportation Committee with a proposal that he called a “starting point.” It produces the $36.5 million needed for the budget year beginning on July 1 and also addresses at least for a few more years the chronic shrinkage in gasoline tax revenues caused by declines in driving and increased fuel efficiency in vehicles.

The plan has four components:

• The sale of transportation infrastructure bonds to raise $8.3 million. This money could be used only for long-term projects.

• A 4 percent assessment on the retail sales price of gasoline would raise $43.56 million for the Transportation Fund.

• A 4.7 cent decrease in the tax per gallon, which would reduce Transportation Fund revenues by $15.32 million. The tax would drop from 19 cents to 14.3 cents.

• Adoption of a provision to adjust the tax per gallon in the future based on the consumer price index.

The proposal would mean that gasoline tax revenues would be fairly evenly split between the tax per gallon, a declining source of funding, and the assessment on price, which can be volatile, Searles said.

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House Transportation Chairman Patrick Brennan, R-Colchester, said the administration’s recommendation would be one of many his committee would analyze.

“We have to see what the effect is to the consumer at the pump,” Brennan said. Searles and his staff had estimated consumers would be paying about 8 cents more per gallon under the administration’s proposal.

Brennan also said that he would like to find a revenue remedy that would stand for more than a few years: “I want to fix this once and for all.”

A board charged with sounding out the public on transportation policy shared a report Thursday that suggested the public might be receptive to higher gasoline costs.

The Vermont Transportation Board held six hearings around the state in October and November and asked about revenues at each location.

“Participants at every hearing expressed considerable support for increasing the gasoline tax,” the report states. “Vermonters clearly understood that the combination of people driving less and vehicles become more efficient has weakened the current tax’s ability to maintain its revenue stream.”

The big caveat to public support for a gas-tax increase, the board’s report noted: The money should be used only for transportation, “and not siphoned to the General Fund.”

Searles urged the House panel to embrace some revenue increase because of the importance of the work the agency wants to do.

The proposed $657 million budget includes $108.9 for paving on 120 miles of interstate highway and 215 miles of state highway. This is comparable to the level of investment the state has made in paving in recent years and has helped reduce the percentage of roads rated in very poor condition from 34 percent in 2009 to 24 percent today.

The budget also has $131.1 million for bridge projects. If approved, this would be the fourth year in which funding for bridges exceeded $100 million, which has helped shrink the percentage of bridges with structural deficits from 16 percent in 2009 to 9 percent today.

There is $4.1 million to expand five park and ride lots and build three new one, for a total increase of 500 parking spaces. Another 150 spaces would be added by distributing $250,000 through municipal park-and-ride grants.

The town highway program would shrink by $42.8 compared with the current year, but transportation officials noted that was primarily because $37.3 million in emergency assistance grants following Tropical Storm Irene had bumped up funding. The total proposed would be $90.6 million.

Searles said the governor’s transportation budget focused on basics. The briefing document he gave lawmakers described the spending plan as “the investments in our transportation infrastructure that we need to refuel our economy.”